World reaction split, with many European nations urging Cuba to seek democratic reforms while most Latin American nations remained silent or noncommittal.

President Bush: "The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy. And eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections -- and I mean free and I mean fair, not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as being true democracy."

The Bush administration was scrambling to pick up the pieces of its shattered Pakistan policy after the trouncing that the party of President Bush's ally, President Pervez Musharraf, received.


The United States would still like to see opposition leaders find a way to work with Musharraf in a power-sharing deal, administration officials said, but that notion appears increasingly unlikely. The White House was reaching out to victorious opposition parties, while trying hard "not to look like we're jumping on anybody's bandwagon," a senior official said.

With the CIA and U.S. Special Forces prevented from operating freely in Pakistan, the search is done mostly from the air.

Improved security in Iraq will give the U.S. military flexibility to do more in Afghanistan in coming months, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. But even as Gates hinted at possible further troop cuts in Iraq, he said a go-slow approach is justified by several circumstances, including slow progress on the political front. "Our military commanders do not yet believe our gains are necessarily enduring," he said. Gates said sectarian tensions have the potential to undo recent security progress.

WASHINGTON - President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow U.S. Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, senior American officials said.

The classified orders mark a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, and after months of a high-level stalemate about how to confront the militants' increasingly secure base in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

U.S. officials say they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks such as the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border but they will not ask for its permission.

The Defense Department has again delayed plans to award a $35 billion contract for Air Force refueling planes, handing a victory to defense contractor Boeing Co. and leaving the politically charged decision for the next president. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers that he ended the current round of bidding on the tankers because the Pentagon's plan to pick a winner by the end of the year no longer seemed possible given the complexity of the project and the rancor between Boeing and rival Northrop Grumman Corp.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court overturned an all-white jury's conviction of a black Louisiana man on Wednesday after finding that racial bias tainted jury selection for his 1996 murder trial.

The prosecutor disqualified black jury candidates before the trial and in closing arguments compared the black defendant to O.J. Simpson. The prosecutor said "the perpetrator in that case ... got away with it."

In its 7-2 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court said the trial judge erred by allowing the prosecutor to disqualify at least one black prospective juror over the objections of the defendant's lawyer.